Moody Ones

Recently I boarded a London bus in a very bad mood (my job is calling heating oil suppliers day in day out, so that’s life for me). The bus driver didn’t help. He was miserable, quiet, and staring at me out the corner of his eye as I ripped the ticket off and walked away.

“Moody git,” I said.

The bus driver shouted “You what mate? What did you say?”

I stepped back. I really didn’t care he was even more in a mood. That was how much in a mood I was.

I said, “I said you look like a moody git is all, why do you lot always look so moody?”

He considered this while I considered it a good thing that there was a sheet of plastic between his moody face and mine.

Then he said, “OK smart ass, come in here for a bit and see what it’s like, then you’ll see, won’t you?”

The compartment wasn’t big enough for the two of us, and for a minute a terrible vision of me being forced to sit on his lap made me shake.

He stepped out and let me get in his seat. Other people who were waiting to get on moaned and said “what the hell?” and the bus driver told them to shut it, which they did.

I sat in his compartment for two minutes. Two minutes of absolute hell. It stank in there, as if someone had been beating meat (with a hammer, using cling-film on top of the meat) and then setting fire to bits of paper. I felt trapped, scared and altogether horrible in that tight space. And I was skinny! How had the twice-as-big-as-me bus driver endured it for so long?

I got out and said to the bus driver, “I’m sorry–I really am–It’s awful. I will never, ever call bus drivers moody gits ever again!”

He said “good.”

As I walked away I said, “you moody git” and he said, “I flippin’ heard that!”